dir. Ryan Bellgardt
Just looking at the poorly designed CGI eponymous character, it’s obvious that this is a brazen attempt to rip off 1995’s Casper. This movie’s protagonist, though, comes with a much more convoluted backstory, as well as a much more convoluted story in the movie itself. The story: a man and his daughter move into sprawling, inherited mansion, planning to renovate and then sell in order to pay off the man’s debts. The daughter meets a friendly wide-eyed little ghost, Ghoster (whose 2022 CGI is sadly comparable to the 1995 CGI it’s ripping off). It would be unfair to say the plot is unclear per se, as characters loudly announce it several times over: Ghoster has been trapped in the house by a dragon named Yuto and needs to use a light knife to destroy a magic diamond to defeat Yuto and escape. It’s pure and utter nonsense, but that doesn’t stop the movie repeating it regularly, in an apparent attempt to make it make sense. Ghoster’s imprisonment is unbelievably inconsistent, as he quite regularly leaves the mansion and doesn’t seem to suffer any restriction of movement. At the movie’s climax, the much-discussed light knife is simply there, right there in front of them, with no explanation as to why or how. There is no respite to be found elsewhere – the daughter’s father’s situation is profoundly unsympathetic, as the majority of his efforts seem to be focused on evading banks and debt collectors, so it’s unclear why the audience would root for him. Ghoster is an unabashed rip-off, but the original elements it brings are so dreadful, it explains why they’d try to steal the success of a much more successful franchise.
BMDb 